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Exploring the Capabilities of Electrospinning

Nature is full of fibrous structures, such as wool, silk, and spider webs from the animal world and cotton, linen, and bamboo from the plant world. These fibrous materials perform special functions not available from bulk materials. If the diameter of the fibers is in the tens or hundreds of nanometers, we enter the world of nanofibers. Nanofibers, whether natural or synthetic, belong to nanomaterials and possess new material properties and functions due to the unique shape and size of the fibers and the myriad of ways these fibers are assembled. Some advantages of nanofibers are a high surface area (1 – 100 m2/g), high porosity (ca 90%), small diameter (10 nm – 1 mm), and a small, interconnected pore size. These unique features make nanofibers useful in numerous diverse application areas, such as filtration, catalyst, sensor, tissue engineering, and energy storage. Several methods are used to make nanofibers: template, self-assemble, phase-separation, melt-blowing, and electrospinning. Among these, electrospinning is deemed the most promising due to its ability to produce continuous nanofibers on a large scale and adjustable fiber structures from a variety of electrospinnable polymers. Read more